


The Girl with the Bread

by mrsbonniemellark



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M, Role Reversal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-20
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-07-25 14:00:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7535551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrsbonniemellark/pseuds/mrsbonniemellark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The cave scene from The Hunger Games re-imagined.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Girl with the Bread

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my tumblr a year ago. Thanks for reading! Come follow me on tumblr at safeinpeetasarms!

I remember all of those years I watched him in school. He was only in a few of my classes, but I cherished each one. And when we passed each other in the hallway, my eyes were drawn to him like magnets. After I gave him the bread, I anxiously watched him for signs of starvation, but he started gradually filling out and I relaxed. He even started coming around the bakery to trade squirrels for bread. I couldn’t help but pay attention to the squirrels too. They were always shot in the same place, right through the eye. He was going to be fine. He always traded with my father, and my father always let me know when he’d been by.

“Peeta came by today with some squirrels,” he’d say.

“Oh yeah?” I’d reply, feigning disinterest. “How is he?”

“Good,” he’d say with a smirk. He knew, of course, but I liked to pretend that I was the only one who knew about my feelings for Peeta Mellark.

And now, as we lie in our cave, he’s asking me why I gave him the bread all of those years ago in the rain, when he was the one dying, and I was the one to take care of him in the limited way that I could, and I don’t know how he doesn’t already know the answer to that.

“You still have no idea. The effect you can have,” I finally say. I said something similar before, when I was telling him and Haymitch that Peeta has a better chance of winning than I do, that he has the hunting skills and he’ll have no problem getting sponsors. And it’s as close to a declaration as I’m going to get, I already said all I needed to during my interview. It appears that I’ve said enough though, because I can see in his eyes that he understands. That he knows exactly why I did it; why I’m so willing to die for him.

Suddenly, he leans down and kisses me. His lips are impossibly soft against my own, chapped from dehydration, and it’s over much too soon, but he kissed me. I feel a warmth spread through me that is not related to my fever, and for the first time since the reaping, I feel hope.


End file.
